Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan Page A

We have to be organised.’
    â€˜Is it only for men, this meeting?’
    â€˜Well, you can’t vote, can you?’ Davey says. ‘Not until you’re thirty.’
    â€˜I can take an interest,’ Non says. ‘Nancy Graves is a socialist, you know. She’s too young to vote but it didn’t stop her being interested. We talked a lot about it when little Mary Pugh who helped her with the baby and the cleaning and cooking was poorly and I took her some herbs and—’
    â€˜Socialist, is she?’ Davey interrupts. ‘D’you think she has any idea what it’s about, socialism? With all that money her family’s got? And that husband of hers with his poetry?’
    â€˜Well, he fought in the War like everyone else,’ Non says, having a fondness for poetry.
    â€˜You’d think, wouldn’t you—’ Davey bangs his hand down on the workbench, sending a cloud of sawdust into the air. ‘All his fuss about this place – his family here all these years – and whensome of the local boys went to complain about conditions and ask him to stand up for them he sent them off with a flea in their ear. Someone told them he made fun of them after, made fun of the way they spoke. They never asked his help again—’ His shoulders slump. ‘You’ve no idea, Non!’
    How did they get here? What wrong turn did the conversation take?
    Davey notices the sawdust settling on the wood he was sanding when she came in and dusts it away, tense and furious again.
    Non looks round for Osian. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘We’d better be getting home. Meg will be back soon, and Wil, and I expect they’ll both be starving, as usual. Bring your new piece of wood with you.’
    She really does have to do something. And now she has a way to do it.
Dear Angela
. . . She rehearses the letter she will write.
My name is Rhiannon Davies. I hope you do not mind that I am writing to you like this, but
. . .

15
    She had not expected to be on the train to Port again so soon. She looks at Wil seated opposite her, his hair flattened to his head with his father’s haircream each side of his parting, wearing the Sunday clothes that she had pressed yesterday for the occasion. Leaving home and going to sea! But at least he will be coming home with her today, she will be the first to know whether the Master has taken him on, which she is certain he will do because Wil is such an excellent young man, sturdy and sensible beyond his age, anyone can see that and hear it when he speaks to them. And an outstanding reference from Albert Edwards in his pocket.
    And in her own pocket a missive of a different kind altogether, but one that may change her life every bit as much as Wil’s may soon change. She fingers the envelope. She thinks, Don’t be foolish, it is still there.
    She had kept her letter short in the end. Yesterday morning, when everyone else had left the house, she sat at the kitchen table with pen and paper and poured out her story onto the pages, so many of them, and when she finished she pushed them all intothe fire and started again. She had written,
Dear Angela, I am Davey Davies’s wife. I would like to meet you and talk to you about what happened to Davey during the War. He is such a changed man. I can come to London if you would be willing to see me. Yours sincerely, Rhiannon Davies
, and blotted the words after every line so that they would not smudge.
    She took the greatest care with her handwriting, but though it was bold and clear and beautiful for its purpose, it was no match for the lovely hand in the letter to Davey, however hard she tried to curve and curl the letters. She puzzled for some time, while the unattended fire died back and the breakfast debris remained around her, about how to ask Angela to reply. The postmen knew everyone’s business if it came through the post; one of them might mention it to Davey if she